6.1 Supporting the Child Care Workforce

Lead Agencies have broad flexibility to implement policies and practices to support the child care workforce. 6.1.1 Strategies to improve recruitment, retention, compensation, and well-being a. Identify any Lead Agency activities related to strengthening workforce recruitment and retention of child care providers. Check all that apply: i. [ ] Providing program-level grants to support investments in staff compensation. ii. [ ] Providing bonuses or stipends paid directly to staff, like sign-on or retention bonuses. iii. [ ] Connecting family child care providers and center-based child care staff to health insurance or supporting premiums in the Marketplace. iv. [ ] Subsidizing family child care provider and center-based child care staff retirement benefits. v. [ ] Providing paid sick, personal, and parental leave for family child care providers and center-based child care staff. vi. [ ] Providing student loan debt relief or loan repayment for family child care providers and center-based child care staff. vii. [x] Providing scholarships or tuition support for center-based child care staff and family child care providers. viii. [ ] Other. Describe: b. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to assess and improve the compensation of the child care workforce in the State or Territory, including increasing wages, bonuses, and stipends. Programs participating in the Lead Agency’s QRS receive quarterly quality incentive payments. The incentives are based on program type and QRS level. Incentives are paid at level 2-5. Incentives range from $469 to $5000 a quarter. Programs are required to budget and spend 20% - 50% of these incentives towards personnel dependent upon QRS level. Examples of personnel benefits can include funding professional development, staff bonuses, merit increases, health insurance, professional memberships, pay for staff training time, and more. Montana is expanding and enhancing its apprenticeship programming. Expansion has begun with the addition of a pre- apprenticeship pilot program which allows participants to complete a CDA. Continued focus on pre-apprenticeship will lead to the inclusion of an infant/toddler CDA and possible other credentials such as a director or leadership credential. Registered Apprenticeship programs require a wage increase at completion of the program. c. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to expand access to benefits, including health insurance, paid sick, personal, and parental leave, and retirement benefits. The Lead Agency contracted with Raise Montana to develop shared services for home-based providers. Services include, but are not limited to, insurance and substitute pools, accounting services and bulk purchasing. The substitute pool coordinated by Raise is available statewide. The partnership with Raise has afforded opportunities for home- based providers to explore how these and other shared services might benefit their programs. Another outcome of the shared services effort resulted in a telehealth, health insurance service. The Lead Agency will support a telehealth health insurance option in the business support contract. PDG B-5 is funding a program specialist who will dedicate time to improve access to benefits for child care workers. The research will cover insurance and leave options and inform the Lead Agency on the proper employee benefits to pursue in the future. The Lead Agency’s QRS system offers incentives through the Redesign as stated in 6.1.1 (b). A percentage of the incentives must go towards personnel which can include paying for access to benefits. d. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to support the mental health and well-being of the child care workforce. The Lead Agency is pursuing a blended funding model to implement Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC). CCDF ARPA and PDG B-5 funding are being used to further develop the IECMHC infrastructure to build the consultation workforce, develop an alliance to guide implementation, and pilot consultation in child care. Lead Agency quality staff monitor contracted work to ensure deliverable completion, collaboration, and early partner engagement. The Lead Agency will use evaluation data to determine the specific child care implementation model, and plan to prioritize caregivers working with infants and toddlers. The following highlight IECMHC deliverables: (1) Workforce retention and staff burnout focused in-person, group, and virtual models and office hours; (2) Support and monitoring of mental health consultants providing IECMHC and IECMHC related services; (3) A Consultation-ready Montana mental health consultant workforce supported by professional development; (4) Reflective supervision; (5) Cultural responsiveness (6); A policy, procedure, and form housing hub. Montana’s QRS, continues to offer incentives through the Redesign as stated in 6.1.1 (b). A percentage of the incentives must go towards personnel which can include paying for services that support mental health and well-being. e. Describe any other strategies the Lead Agency is developing and/or implementing to support providers’ recruitment and retention of the child care workforce. The Lead Agency is expanding and enhancing its apprenticeship programming. The apprenticeship model is comprehensive. It meets many of the workforce goals the State hopes to accomplish in the next three years. Expansion has begun with the addition of a pre- apprenticeship pilot program which allows participants to complete a CDA. Continued focus on pre-apprenticeship will lead to the inclusion of an infant/toddler CDA and a recruitment strategy targeted towards high school students. The following deliverables provide more detail to the apprenticeship work mentioned above. (1) Develop an approach for child care providers to obtain all three CDA types within the apprenticeship system; (2) Develop pathways and programming for the Infant/toddler CDA; (3) Evaluate current pilot program (preschool and family/group CDA credential); (4) Plan implementation of all CDA credentials; (5) Pre-Apprenticeship programming to target high school students (recruitment strategy); (6) Work collaboratively with relevant partners to explore a targeted recruitment strategy from high school to the child care workforce; (7) Address the needs of schools, child care programs, providers, staff, and students leading to a defined pathway for high school students to enter the child care field. The Lead Agency is pursuing a blended funding model to implement IECMHC, as described in 6.1.1.d. The Lead Agency’s model is focused on retention and staff burnout. Recruitment and retention of child care staff was a target goal within two CCDF ARPA contracts. Below are statements identifying related outcomes/deliverables. (1) Build child care program capability and capacity through training and technical assistance, recruitment, and mentoring; (2) Training and technical assistance for start-up business operations and long- term business plan development and sustainability; (3) Professional development for small Family, Friend, and Neighbor providers; (4) TA for providers wishing to become licensed or compliant with federal health and safety standards; (5) Recruitment of new child care providers in underserved areas. Child care recruitment is a key contract activity with all Lead Agency contractors. The Lead Agency saw promising outcomes from its contractors providing training on the implementation of best business practices. TA in this area will be part of future contracted services for all child care program types. Additionally, PDG B-5, currently offers recruitment and retention financial assistance to workers providing direct care to children in registered and licensed facilities. Workers making between 185 and 250% of the Federal Poverty Guideline (FPL) are eligible to receive financial assistance for 12 months to reduce the cost of childcare for staff. 6.1.2 Strategies to support provider business practices a. Describe other strategies that the Lead Agency is developing and/or implementing to strengthen child care providers’ business management and administrative practices. The Lead Agency’s QRS continues to support providers business practices by conducting Program Administration Scale (PAS) and Business Administration Scale (BAS) assessments. These assessments focus on several business practices such as Staff Orientation, Personnel Cost and Allocation, Fiscal Management, Program Planning and Evaluation, Family Partnerships, Marketing and Public Relations. PAS and BAS assessments are required for programs in QRS level 3-5. Assessments planned for 2024 and 2025 are not high stakes, due to the QRS redesign and scores not affecting a program’s level. The results and feedback are for program CQI. QRS staff and the local contracted agencies support the providers with any needs regarding PAS and BAS assessments. Data is reviewed from these assessments and used to determine training needs and/or additional business supports. The new QRS launching in the Fall of 2025 will continue to offer business practice supports. The Lead Agency business supports contractor provides both individual and community business supports. b. Check the topics addressed in the Lead Agency’s strategies for strengthening child care providers’ administrative business practices. Check all that apply: i. [x] Fiscal management. ii. [x] Budgeting. iii. [x] Recordkeeping. iv. [x] Hiring, developing, and retaining qualified staff. v. [x] Risk management. vi. [x] Community relationships. vii. [x] Marketing and public relations. viii. [x] Parent-provider communications. ix. [x] Use of technology in business administration. x. [x] Compliance with employment and labor laws. xi. [ ] Other. Describe any other efforts to strengthen providers’ administrative business: 6.1.3 Strategies to support provider participation Lead Agencies must facilitate participation of child care providers and staff with limited English proficiency and disabilities in the child care subsidy system. Describe how the Lead Agency will facilitate this participation, including engagement with providers to identify barriers and specific strategies used to support their participation: a. Providers and staff with limited English proficiency: Montana has recently seen an increase in the number of people whose first languages is not English. While this increase is observed across the state, it is more pronounced in the larger urban areas of Billings, Bozeman, and Missoula. Missoula has also historically been the site of refugee resettlement efforts. To support providers who are not proficient in English, the Lead Agency has a contract with Language Link to be able to provide the contracted Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies with easy and accessible real time translation services for a wide range of languages. The Lead Agency has as also recently begun a Spanish language translation project to convert documents into Spanish. The first step was to convert licensing application materials and support materials into Spanish. That phase is completed and those documents are available on the Lead Agency’s website and through the contracted CCR&R agencies. b. Providers and staff who have disabilities: Accommodations in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act are available to providers with disabilities for trainings and participation on the Practitioner Registry. The Lead Agency contractors, Child Care Licensing, and other state partners coordinate to meet the needs of providers through accessibility accommodations as needed. The Early Childhood Project (ECP) Policies and Procedures are available on their website and outline the following: - The ECP shall assure quality services and comply with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. The Early Childhood Project reviews all content that goes out to the public to assure it meets specific requirements: diversity of families in imagery, language, accessibility in written text, pictures, and videos. The Lead Agency prioritizes accessible documents and webpages so providers with disabilities gain access to CCDF information.